Symbolism

Definition of symbolism : the art or practice of using symbols especially by investing things with a symbolic meaning or by expressing the invisible or intangible by means of visible or sensuous representations. 
  

So firstly I am going to look at Artists who worked through the symbolist movement. 

Symbolism started in the literary world but poets of the time believed that you could not simply describe reality in a word, poetry did it much more effectively, not losing the emotional effect it has over you.
The poet Stéphane Mallarmé’s believed that reality was best expressed through poetry because it paralleled nature rather than replicating it. In Mallarmé’s words, 

“To name an object is to suppress three-quarters of the enjoyment to be found in the poem… suggestion, that is the dream.”

Symbolist painters believed that art should reflect an emotion or idea rather than represent the natural world in the objective, scientific manner which clearly was clearly the direction taken by Realism and Impressionism. Returning to the personal expressivity advocated by the 

Romantics 

earlier in the nineteenth century, they felt that the symbolic value or meaning of a work of art stemmed from the re-creation of emotional experiences in the viewer through color, line, and composition. In painting, Symbolism represents a combination of form and feeling, of reality and the artist’s inner subjectivity.

This is exactly what I am trying to achieve. Grief cannot be explained, the heaviness of it, the utter devistation to your life cannot just be written factually, but I feel (I hope) I can reprisent this thorugh my work! Now I know that symbolism will come into play in this unit particularly water. I have been exploring the theme of water for a few months now (the horrific thoughts I was somehow responsible or could have prevented it still remains with m (I don't think it will even go away), as if painting water was some sort of omen) but I will throw myself into symbolism firstly. 

Particularly the works by Odilon Redon, James Ensor, and Paul Gauguin. 

This will be explored in my sketchbook and will do a post on here for each sepreately. 

I feel this may be my most challenging work to date, not only as a conclusion of what I have learned thus far, but also for my own metal health. But If I have learned anything - 

there is no art without pain. 

My work will reprisent my journey through the grieving process day to day. To eventually have an accurate representation of what grief is. 

My mother died on the 5th March 2019. 

Everyday has been a struggle.